John Creasey - The Toff and The Lady

She backed away when Malloy rose to his feet. The man looked as if he would defy Rollison and the gun, and actually stepped towards her. For the first time Rollison saw that the woman was frightened. The glare did what oaths could not, and she shrugged her shoulders and looked away from him, with her lips tightly set.

“Don’t change your mind,” said Rollison to her.

“It’s changed for her,” said Malloy, turning towards him with a sneer. “You think you’re clever, don’t you—well, you’ll learn different. If you knew everything we could tell you, you still wouldn’t know much. If you want to know the whole story, find the Countess, she’ll tell you.”

Rollison said: “What countess?”

“I thought you knew all about her,” said Malloy, “and you thought I was unconscious.” He looked at Pomeroy. “He’s all gas, he doesn’t know a thing.”

That was the moment when they heard a sound inside the house.

Malloy moved his head round quickly, and Pomeroy clapped his hands together as if in anguish. Rollison whispered:

“Quiet—all of you.”

Malloy opened his lips, and then caught sight of the gun and discretion triumphed. Flo stared at the door which still stood ajar. Pomeroy was uttering little noises in his throat, but they were not loud enough to be heard outside.

“Malloy, where are you?” There were heavy footsteps in the next room, a smothered oath, and then: “You’ve got to get out, the police are coming!”

A man came into the room.

Rollison stared incredulously at Marcus Shayle, who stood, quite as dumbfounded, on the threshold of the room.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HUE AND CRY

MALLOY took full advantage of the opportunity that offered. Looking round as Shayle paused, he saw that Rollison’s gun was pointing towards the door, and that Rollison was momentarily off his guard. He put his hands beneath the edge of the table and tipped it up, and as Rollison realized the danger the table struck him on the thigh. As he staggered against the wall he remembered Malloy’s gun, and tried desperately to regain his balance.

“Snap into it!” Malloy shouted.

Pomeroy bounded from the chair, jumped past Rollison and sped into the passage, while Marcus Shayle turned back and disappeared. For an agonizing moment Malloy and his wife stared at each other; then Malloy moved towards the gun.

Flo bent down, snatched it up and flung it through the window. There was a crash of breaking glass. Loud footsteps sounded in the street, and then grew fainter. From inside the house Shayle shouted:

“Don’t waste time!”

“If you breathe a word,” Malloy said to his wife. “I won’t rest until I’ve killed you.” There was no passion in his voice, it was a simple statement of intention. Then he went out of the door into the next room.

The front room was curiously quiet. The woman stood against the wall with her hands at her face, and Janice stirred again but did not open her eyes. Rollison tried the door into the next room, but found it locked. He went into the street, but there was no sign of Pomeroy. As he turned back into the little house, the door of the shop opened and Percy appeared, his Adam’s apple working at lightning speed.

“S’matter?” he demanded, shrill-voiced.

“Most of the birds have flown,” said Rollison.

“Cor-lumme, you didn’t start anything!”

“Not enough,” said Rollison. “The police will be here any moment, Percy, I shouldn’t stay if you don’t want to be a witness.”

“What, me?” said Percy.

He went back into his shop, and Rollison looked along the street. Two cars were coming round the corner. He shrugged his shoulders resignedly as he went into the front room. Mrs. Malloy had not moved, but she had taken her hands from her face and was staring at Janice, whose eyes were open and who looked bewilderedly about her. She saw Rollison, and tried to get to her feet, but dropped back with a gasp, and said plaintively :

“Oh, my head is terrible:

“Just sit still.” said Rollison.

The cars pulled up outside, and he met Grice on the front doorstep. It was a harassed Grice, with two sergeants who looked at Rollison in surprise.

“Are they here?” Grice demanded.

“No,” said Rollison.

“So you frightened them away.”

Rollison put his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“A man who should be under arrest warned them. The gang would have been waiting here for you if he hadn’t arrived.”

Grice said slowly: “So Shayle came here.”

“Yes.”

“He broke away from the two men who brought him up from Devon,” said Grice. “That was at Waterloo, less than an hour ago, so he must have come straight here.”

“He warned them that the police were coming,” repeated Rollison.

“He gave this address when he cracked under questioning early this morning, and afterwards regretted it,” said Grice. “Have we got anything on Malloy?”

“Yes. Assault and battery at the very least.”

“Good!” said Grice. “Was anyone else here besides Malloy and his wife?”

“A certain sporting gentleman who calls himself Pomeroy.”

“So he is in it.”

“Of course he’s in it,” said Rollison. “You’re assuming that

Malloy’s wife went with them, aren’t you? She preferred to

stay behind, and but for her” He smiled, but without

much humour. “I’ll give her my thanks in person,” he went on.

Grice made no comment, and they went into the front room as two plainclothes policemen came through the other door, having gained entry through the kitchen. Mrs. Malloy was still standing by the wall, and when Grice approached her she looked at him steadily and said:

“I know nothing and I shall say nothing and all the police in London won’t make me.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Grice.

“And all the Superintendents, too,” she said, but there was no spirit in her and she dragged herself away from the wall to sit down on the arm of a chair.

Grice said slowly: “Mrs. Malloy, I don’t want”

“Steady old chap,” said Rollison, “she’s had a rough passage.” He saw the woman look at him in surprise. He then went to Janice’s side. Janice was pressing her hands against her forehead and complaining about a headache. Rollison felt no particular sympathy towards her. Grice said that he was going to take them both to Scotland Yard for questioning. Janice turned to Rollison with tears in her eyes and begged him not to let them, but he did not want to prevent the police from interrogating her.

Grice left a sergeant and a detective-officer to search the house, after Rollison had given him a detailed account of what had happened. Rollison particularly like Grice’s manner with Flo Malloy; he no longer tried to use the heavy hand, but helped her into the police car, where she sat next to Janice. Janice, knowing that she could not save herself from this indignity, sat in petrified silence.

Rollison sat next to Grice, who followed the leading car towards the main road.

“Was the Malloy quarrel genuine?” he asked.

“Yes. Malloy would have done murder, and his wife wanted to save him and probably herself from hanging,” said Rollison, “but I doubt whether she will talk now. If you had seen the way the man looked at her you would understand why.”

“Looked?” Grice was sceptical.

“I hope he’ll demonstrate for you one day,” said Rollison. “Well, there we are and we can’t do a great deal about it, except start a hue-and-cry.”

“That won’t take long,” said Grice.

At Scotland Yard he put out a general call for all three missing men. The two women were left in a waiting-room, with a policeman in with them and another outside the door, while Grice put the instructions through from his office, and then telephoned a report to the Assistant Commissioner. When he had finished, he leaned back in his chair and said:

“At least it was the Devon fellows who let Shayle go, we didn’t. He buttered them into letting him walk without handcuffs.”

“When did you know that he had talked of Malloy?” asked Rollison.

“Not until I knew that he’d got away,” said Grice. “The Devon fellows were so proud of having got something out of him that they said nothing in their telephoned report—they wanted to come and tell us how well they had done our job. Still, moaning about them won’t help. How did you get on to Malloy?”

“It was general knowledge that Larry Bingham owed him fifty pounds,” said Rollison, “and Larry has the reputation of paying his debts in kind. Larry was seen at the house yesterday afternoon.”

“You could have telephoned me,” said Grice, without much spirit.

“Yes, couldn’t I?” said Rollison. “I also heard that Janice Armitage was there, and I didn’t want to take chances with her.” He sat back.

Then: “Did you get any information about your countess?” Grice demanded.

“Your countess—my unknown lady,” Rollison corrected.

“So you’re sticking to that?”

“Firmly,” Rollison assured him. “What’s more, there is a chance that Lady Lost was at Malloy’s house for a while.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“From chance remarks,” said Rollison.

Grice raised no objection to Rollison being present while he questioned the women. He chose Mrs. Malloy first, believing that the longer Janice was on tenterhooks, the more readily she would talk.

Mrs. Malloy refused to speak, refused to admit that her husband had struck Janice or her, and remained tight-lipped, looking sullenly at Grice with her curiously-lidded eyes half-narrowed. She denied the presence of any other woman at the house.

“All right,” Grice said. “I’ll see you again later.”

She turned to go, with a man on either side of her.

“Flo,” said Rollison, as she reached the door.

She ignored him.

“Flo,” repeated Rollison, going across and looking into her eyes. “Malloy isn’t worth it. There’ll never be a future for you with him again. Although you tried to stop him from doing murder, he will probably be hanged. Don’t make it worse for yourself than it is now. If your worry is money, there are ways and means of helping.”

“I don’t want your help,” Flo said.

“You may do, later.” He turned back into the room.

“You’re fancying different types, aren’t you?” said Grice.

“Don’t be coarse,” said Rollison.

“Flo Malloy is as hard a nut as her husband,” said Grice. “I felt sorry for her at the house, because of what he’d said and done, but I shouldn’t be soft-hearted over her.”

Rollison made no comment.

When Janice came up she was in tears, and it took all Grice’s patience to coax the story out of her. She had been given Malloy’s address by Marcus Shayle, and had often been to the house—it was there that she received the “presents” he had sent her. She declared that she was desperately in love with Marcus and would do anything to help him, and she did not flinch when Grice talked of murder, but she did make a comment surprisingly shrewd for her.

“No one’s dead yet. ”

“They did you go there to-day?” demanded Grice.

She sniffed and dabbed at her red-rimmed eyes; she looked girlish and might have appealed to the sympathy of some men at the Yard, but Grice was never impressed by tears or innocent looks. Eventually she told him that Pomeroy had sent for her and told her that Marcus would be released, and that she would be able to see him if she went the that morning.